Keto Dieting, Fat Loss & How it Affects Athletic Performance

It’s no secret that the ketogenic diet is one of the most powerful diets out there. It has proven to be effective when it comes to burning fat and losing weight, but it also has many other benefits.

For example, some of them are:

effective remedy for epilepsy and some types of cancer,

removes cravings

increases good cholesterol levels

The keto diet shows well, how simply changing your diet without exercising can outperform the standard American diet.

We know that the ketogenic diet is a secret weapon when it comes to losing weight and fighting diseases, but are there any advantages for physically active people?

In this article, we look deeper if and how ketosis impacts athletic performance.

What is Keto Dieting?

Before we dive deep into the nuts and bolts of low carb diets, let’s go over what keto dieting really is.

In a nutshell, keto dieting is an extremely low-carb, moderate protein and high-fat diet. The main purpose of this eating style is to remove all the carbs from the menu, deplete all the carb-based energy sources and start producing ketone bodies.

Ketosis

Once your body produces enough ketone bodies, your body will be in a metabolic state called ketosis.

Ketosis occurs when your body has switched from using carbs as the primary energy source to using fats as the primary energy source.

Yes, that’s right, your body will be riding on fats and burning even more fats at the same time.

These magical ketone bodies are produced by your body from fat. This is also the reason why nutritional ketosis is so appealing to sedentary people as very effective weight loss solution.

But why is this so appealing to athletes?

Because you have a virtually unlimited reserve of energy source to use. What do I mean by that?

When you are on a carbohydrate-rich diet, your body can store up to 1600-2000 calories worth of energy in muscles, blood and in the liver. Once these are depleted, you are out of fast energy sources. Now, when you are running on the keto diet, you are fueled by ketone bodies. This means you are using fat as the main energy source. And you don’t run low on blood glucose.

The second reason why the keto diet is often so desirable among athletes is, that fat is way more stable energy source than carbs. The digestion, breakdown, and absorption of fats is a much slower process than it is it with carbs.

The keto diet and exercise

In a classical sense, the main energy source is usually carbohydrates for exercising, as it is a fairly fast energy source.

The ketogenic diet, on the other hand, takes a low-carb approach to this. During the ketogenic diet, dieters usually reduce carbohydrate intake down to 20-50 grams per day or even less. At the same time, the main source of energy would come from fats.

Nutritional ketosis is a very popular topic right now. This is because people point to the metabolic advantage that keto diet provides, by relying on fat as the main source of energy, instead of carbohydrates.

The other side focuses on the physical limitations of eliminating carbs as the main fuel source for performance. Both sides are somewhat biased, as there’s a new market that everyone wants a piece of. Research suggests…

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